The light comes in the name of the voice.

In Anne Carson’s essay Variations on the Right to Remain Silent, she says that when asked by the Inquisition if the voices in her head were singular or plural, Joan of Arc answered, “The light comes in the name of the voice.” The elements in this sentence are tangled up with each other and completely disconnected at the same time. As an answer to a simple question it takes us no where. As a proposition about the paradoxical connection and separation of things, it is truthful poetry.

On approach, each box is faced with a mirror. A single sewing machine pedal activated by the viewer turns on the light in each box, and its contents are illuminated. As a grow light nurtures the plant, a heat lamp melts the waxen ear. To sustain the plant is to destroy the ear. To preserve the ear is to starve the plant.